Scientists from Flinders University are in the Northern Territory to conduct one of the largest arid zone groundwater studies ever undertaken in Australia.
Dr Peter Cook says 100 bores, three weather stations and 20 river sensors have been installed on Pine Hill Station in the Ti Tree Basin, 150 kilometres north of Alice Springs.
He says over the next two weeks they will use the equipment to set up a system to measure how much groundwater seeps into the aquifer.
"What we'll see after the river flows, the water in these sands rises up near the surface and then over the next six months or so it slowly drops," he said.
"We're trying to tell whether it's dropping because it's seeping into the main aquifer or it's dropping because the trees lining the riverbed they've obviously got some water they're using and we're trying to tell how much they're using."